“Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future” Session 7

“Echoes Across Time: Voices of Survival and Lessons for Our Future”

In collaboration with the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre

As we stand on the cusp of history, the voices of Holocaust and genocide survivors grow more urgent, reminding us of the cost of silence, the value of empathy, and the power of resilience. “Echoes Across Time” invites audiences to explore the critical lessons these testimonies offer—on values, democracy, and the warning signs of oppression. Through monthly episodes, each centered around a survivor’s testimony about their life experiences, this series probes the question: Are we truly listening? Join us as we amplify stories from the Holocaust to Rwanda, Cambodia, and beyond, engaging with survivors, scholars, and advocates who work tirelessly to preserve these legacies and inspire a more compassionate future.

“From Tragedy to Healing: Rwanda’s Path to Restorative Justice”

Featuring: Rwanda genocide survivor and Director of the Kigali Genocide Meorial and Aegis Trust, Freddy Mutanguha, shares his powerful story of survival, healing, and contributing to the country’s unique journey through restorative justice. This session will examine Rwanda’s approach to rebuilding—through forgiveness, communal healing, and reconciliation—and the powerful lessons this path holds for the world. Freddy’s testimony provides insight into how survivors and communities alike can transform trauma into hope, and how memory and accountability can drive long-lasting peace and understanding.

Freddy Mutanguha is CEO of the Aegis Trust and Director of the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Freddy led the development of Aegis’ peace education programme in Rwanda and is now leading Aegis’ work to take this model beyond the borders of Rwanda to areas at risk, including the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Kenya. Joining Aegis in 2004 during the construction of the Kigali Genocide Memorial as a team leader responsible for genocide documentation, he was appointed Country Director in 2006. Freddy is Chair of the board of Miracle Corner Rwanda, an organisation which aims to empower the community in Rwanda by helping young people to acquire the vocational skills they need to thrive socially and economically.

He holds a master’s degree in project management from the Maastricht School of Management and trained as a teacher, securing a bachelor’s degree in Education from the Kigali Institute of Education. He survived Rwanda’s 1994 genocide as a teenager, and as an orphan head of household, in 2016, the Justice and Security Foundation declared him a Peace award winner for his outstanding contribution to peace. He is also profiled in the Atlanta Human Rights Museum as a prominent activist for human rights.

Helping to found AERG, Rwanda’s student survivors association, Freddy went on to become vice-President of IBUKA, the national umbrella association for Rwandan genocide survivors. He is an External Advisory Committee member of the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive in Los Angeles, and lectures internationally on the impact of the Genocide and the importance of forgiveness as way of post-conflict reconstruction.

Tali Nates

Tali Nates is the founder and director of the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) and Chair of the South African Holocaust & Genocide Foundation (SAHGF). She is a historian who lectures internationally on Holocaust and genocide education, memory, reconciliation, and human rights. Born to a family of Holocaust survivors, her father and uncle were saved by Oskar Schindler. Tali has been involved in the creation and production of dozens of documentary films, published many articles and contributed chapters to different books among them God, Faith & Identity from the Ashes: Reflections of Children and Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors (2015), Remembering The Holocaust in Educational Settings (2018), Conceptualizing Mass Violence, Representations, Recollections, and Reinterpretations (2021) and The Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism (2023).

In 2021 she was part of the 12-member Expert Group of the Malmö Forum, serving in an advisory capacity to the Secretariat of the Malmö Forum on their programme on Holocaust remembrance, education and actions to combat antisemitism. Tali serves on many Advisory and Academic Boards including that of the Contested Histories Initiative, the Interdisciplinary Academic Journal of Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and the Academic Advisory Group of the School of Social and Health Sciences, Monash University (IIEMSA), South Africa.

In 2010, Tali was chosen as one of the top 100 newsworthy and noteworthy women in South Africa by the Mail & Guardian newspaper and won many awards including the Kia Community Service Award (South Africa, 2015), the Gratias Agit Award (2020, Czech Republic), the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award (2021) and the Goethe Medal (2022, Germany).

• November 2025: After the Genocide in Cambodia: Rebuilding from Devastation